Posted
by
Soulskill
on Tuesday March 13, 2012 @02:45PM
from the beware-the-anti-tube-legislation dept.

New submitter Warmlight writes "The BBC reports that 'Bahrain and Belarus have been added to Reporters Without Borders' annual list of "enemies of the internet." They join 10 other nations on the campaign group's register of states that restrict net access, filter content and imprison bloggers. India and Kazakhstan have also joined RWB's list of "countries under surveillance" because of concerns that they are becoming more repressive.' I wonder how ACTA will affect this in the next year? In their report, they say, 'Resistance to ACTA is stronger than ever and the treaty may not see the light of day. Vigilance must be maintained.'"

Ah I think I understand now, if cash can be speech then why not bullets and tanks? They convey much more of a message IMO.

I think it depends on who you're trying to get the message to, and current conditions. A whisper to your wife in bed usually works, but King George, Muammar Ghadaffi, and Hosni Mubarak took a bit stronger amplitude.

Product numbers are so 2011.I have the new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new new iPad.

Enjoy the Koolaid... You may be happy to spend your money on over-priced toys, for no reason other than your loyalty to the HOLY APPLE (a company INTERESTED IN MAKING PROFITS!)

While you're wasting money on Apple junk, I'm saving a fortune by sitting sobbing in a darkened room, my solitary sorrow punctuated only by brief posts on Slashdot, the hourly self-conscious wank, and checking outside my door to see if mother has left me some sandwiches.

I would think Bahrain is a nice buffer from Iran in control of the straights (indirectly related to oil) and is quite close with Saudi (indirectly related to oil) and the stability of Bahrain is important to regional interests (indirectly related to oil).
But that said... come to the region and you will find that there is more then just oil. There is a different way of thinking that is not all bad. And much of the western media and pop culture about the region leaves me scratching my head thinking WTF?

There's a subtle difference between "We're shutting you down because you're giving people free movies that you don't have the rights to" and "We're keeping you from accessing these websites because they say we are corrupt assholes." Or "We're going to kill you for saying things we don't like online."

Both are bad in my opinion, the US could easily slide into outright internet censorship, and the US is also hypocritical on this matter, but for right now I feel we're not in the same league as, say, Syria.

Here is the point where you say, "But that is still different, because those people died due to government mistakes!" At the end of the day, however, people were killed by militarized government agents.

Yes, wikileaks. The government doesn't like it. I can, however, type in www.wikileaks.org and go to wikileaks, and not run into anything like the Great Firewall. They are not preventing me from accessing those websites for political speech. They are taking some shady approaches to wikileaks and Assange, but blocking due to political reasons, they're not to that yet.

Does the US order soldiers to open fire on protesters? No, of course not, we prefer to have our paramilitary police enter homes in the early hours of the morning and shoot people.

But not for the purposes of suppressing political speech. Perhaps only because law enforcement has learned not to make martyrs of people th

What I meant was, it's easy to get too busy analyzing what HAS happened, and how its impact hasn't been "that bad", and in the process ignore the direction things are going, and thus seeing even the present, seemingly innocent/explainable actions should be considered evil in light of the whole, bigger picture.

Also, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If the actual outcome of a course of action is death and destruction, it doesn't matter one bit what the initial intentions were.

The problem with FidoNet is that it's explicitly non-anonymous by design. Also, since network topology is geographical, it's fairly easy to trace things, and for stuff that matters most of the time (e.g. correspondence between two citizens of the same country), falls entirely in the jurisdiction of a single government - so if it's oppressive, it can easily obtain evidence or wiretap.

Fidonet actually has a claim to fame on this - while governments are restricting net access, the lowly modem is often free and clear as POTS aren't monitored as heavily, so the passage of messages through Fidonet is often much easier and much safer. It's just a lot slower as it's basically computers synchronizing with each other daily via modem.

Some of us are still running UUCP nodes over POTS phone lines just for the heck of it. Others are running various darknets on top of the main IP network (Freenet, RetroShare, and many, many others). There are also UUCP-based or even IP-based packet radio out there if you have a HAM license...

The country that promoted SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, taken hostile control of the root dns, made raids overseas for Megaupload and others, have laws that force big companies like google/facebook/etc to give them their customers information and a "few" more is somewhat absent there. We need the Archenemy of the Internet list for it?

I don't know of many (any?) developed countries that aren't currently struggling with issues like this.

So what you are saying is that governments in general have a problem with a network that allows cheap, fast, long-distance and hard-to-control communication between people? Yeah, I guess I cannot really disagree with that: governments want to control everything, and the Internet is a hard thing to control.

If for you killing is specifically shooting in the heart with a 9mm and not all the other possible ways, yes, the enemies of internet could be just the ones that restrict net access. But restricting net access to the citizens of one of your own cities or even your own country looks less severe than restricting somewhat internet (and free expression, and a lot more) to all the world.

Don't know what does Iran, Belarus, or Bahrain to you if you do in your own country (provided that is not one of them) somethi

I'd say that the US is the biggest enemy overall to the internet. I mean those others are just censoring for their people. The US has decided to censor it for the world. And if they can't do that, they'll just seize the domain.